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Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Tutorial time – Fabric Covered Headband

I came across a few plastic headbands hiding in one of my many containers that I had forgotten I had and for the life of me I can’t quite remember what I had planned for them.

And after throwing some more fabric scraps into my stash today a little light bulb went off above my head, fabric covered headbands, what a great idea.

I know my girls sometimes complain about these type of plastic headbands as they have a small comb type of pattern underneath to hold them in your hair so using fabric to cover them would not only stop the headband from hurting their little heads it would pretty them up as well. And why not add a few embellishments as well.

So here is what I came up with:

These are so easy to make and it uses the same technique as my fabric key chain's (bias tape fold).

Today I am going to show you how to make the fabric cover along with the felt flower embellishment, you will need:

1 x thin plastic headband (you can find these at any discount store usually in a pack of 3)

1 x 4 inch wide x 9.5 inch long fabric strip of your choice

4 x circles of felt (I used a glass to make out the circle)

1 x smaller felt circle to sew the flower to (it’s about the size of a 20 cent piece)

1 x large button (I made a fabric button out of the fabric I used for the cover)

Now to put it all together:

Note: to get the size of the fabric strip I just measured from where the comb starts and finishes inside the headband (see picture below).

Lets make the fabric cover. First we need to hem each end of the fabric so using a zigzag stitch sew as close to edge as you can so that when the headband is threaded through it doesn’t catch or pull the top of the seam out.

I set my stitch length at 3 and the width at 4. If you do not have a zigzag stitch sew about a 1/4 inch from the edge.

Now to heat up your iron and make a double bias tape fold. To do this iron your fabric in half with wrong sides together:

Then open the fabric out flat again, fold one side to the centre line you just made and iron it flat, then do this to the other side:

Now you have yourself some double sided bias tape:

All we need to do now is sew a 1/4 inch seam down both sides and then you will be able to thread the headband through it’s new cover:

For the felt flower, fold each circle in half and then in half again and machine or hand sew each one to the smaller circle as pictured, I always hand sew mine:

Using your button, sew the embellishment onto the fabric cover, making sure only to sew on to one side. You may find it easier to do this while the headband is threaded through.

Miss G is very happy with her new headband but her big sister didn’t want a felt flower, Miss J wanted Mummy’s crochet flowers she found in my crochet stash:

So have fun using up your scraps for this one. The girls have their eyes on a few more bits out of my stash and that is what’s great about this cover as you can make as many as you like and wear a different one for each day of the week.

Would love to see what you come up with!

Jennifer xx

Note: This tutorial is for personal use only not for resale. If you have mentioned this post anywhere, used it on your own blog, I would really appreciate a link back or a mention. Cheers!!!